


Chevalier Dismounted

by lesbomancy



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:48:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6078222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chevalier Karina Duprie finds herself running from the opposition during the brief Orlesian civil war only to be saved by an extremely unlikely duo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chevalier Dismounted

Dust kicked back from the road as the chevalier woman raised her spear, tucking it firmly underneath her arm as she tried her best to steady it as she closed in on soldiers bearing Empress Celene’s colors. The woman’s face was obscured by a bloodied, shiny bronze mask and even through the yelling of her prey she could be heard laughing jovially.

“Down with the false empress!” she cried, letting gravity do it’s work as her horse carried the spear right into the back of a fleeing soldier. The haft snapped immediately, the chevalier woman letting go just as quickly. Her horse carried her well past, allowing the three other Imperial Army soldiers to stop out of fear or a desire to help their comrades.

Chevalier Karina Duprie cared little for their reasons, her hand pulling free a flanged mace from her war steed’s saddle. She twirled the long and heavy weapon to and fro, pointing it at the soldiers as she gained control of her beast once again. She reveled in the ride and the looks on their faces, their utter incompetence when faced with a true chevalier who was battle tested.

Two of the men tried to form a shield wall, the last one readying his blade as soon as he confirmed that their comrade was dead from Karina’s spear to the back. It would have been a successful tactic had the chevalier been ten years younger but throughout her years she learned the best way to break a shield wall was to avoid it.

Karina rode hard until the last moment, pulling her horse’s muzzle to the right. Her only trusted wartime companion knew the drill and preformed the sharp zig-zag around the shield wall as if it were pure instinct, stopping short directly behind the grouping so that they were at Karina’s right side - her mace side.

“Go to the Maker’s side!” She screeched in her bloodthirsty baritone before raking the unshielded soldier on the face with the flanges of her mace. She kicked her spurs into her horse’s side and forced it to march into the reforming wall of two soldiers. One of them, a man, fell backwards and had the misfortune of having his leg stepped on by an armored warhorse.

The other, a woman, prepared her blade to make contact with Karina’s neck. The chevalier twirled her mace around, quickly disarming the loyalist before jamming the spike at the tip of the head of her weapon into the woman’s eye socket. She pulled her mace out and then savagery bludgeoned the woman until she fell over.

Karina was ready to put the man on the ground out of his misery as he screamed in agony when her horse, Loyalty, jumped back and began to act in a panic - something which the purebred stallion rarely ever did. As the chevalier pulled on the reins to get better control she noticed several figures rising over the hill. They were gaunt figures, groaning and shambling towards the road as if it was their only purpose in life.

The veteran had seen this several times before.. the cursed dead arose to kill again! She sheathed her mace and pulled hard on the reins to direct Loyalty towards the northern road. She had to return to the Plains and inform those at the ramparts that the dead threatened to turn the tide!

Dust once again kicked back, the screaming man’s pleading for Karina to save or kill him lost on the woman’s ears. Before long there were no screams at all, the man proving an able distraction despite his misplaced loyalties. Good for something, she thought. She rode through the eastern Dales, coming from a disgustingly humid outpost which lied several miles from the Exalted Plains. She regretted stopping to kill the Imperial Army scouts, albeit if she did not then she would not have this news to carry to the rest of Gaspard de Chalons’ army.

News of undead rising delivered early enough all but stopped it from becoming an issue, especially since experienced hunters and trackers were capable of defending entire villages from such cursed events. The might of the chevaliers would stand strong, even if the Imperial Army strained them - they would at least have one difficult battle!

Her thoughts cleared immediately, the image of a bowman with de Chalons colors filling her peripheral vision. He had the high ground.. and he was aiming? Her banner was with the Grand Duke, so she had hoped it was merely a precaution. Her chevalier intuition pulled against that thought, the growing niggle that he aimed at her forcing her hands to pull tighter and her heels to smack wetly against Loyalty’s flesh.

The arrow that followed was one fired from an expert’s hand, Karina not seeing where it landed or what it hit as her and Loyalty tumbled forward in a somersault which left the two both battered and bloodied. Her helmet was scratched and bent, the mask modeled after her mother’s face now twisted into a concave grimace. She could not see through the whirlwind of dirt and pain which threw her off the road and into the tall grass.

Cool air whipped at her through her eyeholes, telling her she was downwind as she lay there limp. She took quiet stock of her faculties, flexing her hands and feet and then subtly moving her limbs. Her back felt queer, pain jolting through her entire body as she moved her arms to pull her helmet off. Her messy brown hair fell over her face, blood from superficial impact wounds pouring over her left eye.

She turned onto her belly and pushed herself to her knees, eyes drawing over to see Loyalty letting out increasingly shallow breathes as he laid contorted in a position no healthy horse would be in. Karina let out a panicked sob as she crawled to cradle the beasts neck, her gloved hands finding the broken arrow shaft jammed just one inch too close to a vital organ to be a salvageable wound.

The chevalier drew her hand over the horse’s mane and nose, whispering hollow words of assurance. She knew it had little time left as the beast of burden huffed loudly, trying to take in more air where it was soon not going to be needed. The pain in Karina’s back jolted sharply as she pulled her dagger free of the sheath on her leg, a quick one-armed hug and gentle kiss to the brow all she could offer Loyalty before slicing the beast’s throat and cutting short it’s misery.

Karina rolled off of the bleeding animal and choked back a sob, laying defeated against the corpse of what really was her only friend. She lolled her head back, knowing that the warmth she felt at the back of her neck would be gone in minutes. She thought back to when she received the stallion as a birthday gift.

“With him, you will topple wyverns,” she whispered.

Tears overtook her, a chevalier without her steed - without her friend. Twenty brushes a day, drills, only the best feed possible for Loyalty.. and now it faded away over the blood-red fog of the civil war. Even if whoever shot at her ran away she would find it difficult to pull herself up and return to the front, let alone to her lands. She cried for several minutes, choking and shaking until she couldn’t do either anymore.

She nodded off for several minutes, nursing her head wound and mourning her steed. A sharp whistle followed by a splash of water on the face forced her awake and upright, the pain in her back once against lashing out and forcing Karina to groan.

Several figures surrounded her and the now-dead Loyalty on the side of the road. Karina looked up to study them, men with colors both of Gaspard de Chalons’ chevaliers as well as the Imperial Army. One of them, the archer, was familiar. A scout named Bryant in her unit which she ordered to relay important caravan numbers to the front - he was supposed to be at the ramparts by now informing the others of when more rations would arrive!

“Hello, Comtesse!” he said cheerily.

“A Freeman now?” Karina spat. “I suppose I should expect no less from an honorless man who so freely joined another country’s army.”

The man scowled, moving to crouch next to Karina as he tapped the edge of a dagger against the scars on the left side of her face.

“Honorless is dying over two cousins having a quarrel, your mighty bitchness,” his nose curled upwards in disgust. “Besides, I knew you’d be out today and I figured we’d wait here until you rode out. That brooch you carry is something me new pal Piers will be able to get a good price for in Denerim. We’re gonna split it two ways and be able to feed our fucking families without dying for a stupid fight.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Karina sneered, not daring make a move as Bryant threatened to shave off the skin of her neck.

“Of course you don’t. I’m just a dumb Free Marcher who joined the army, right? I wouldn’t know shit if it came out me ass.” he said.

Bryant dug his free hand down the neck of Karina’s armor, rummaging around until he pulled out a necklace which held a small brown baggie. He forced it open and poured the contents out onto the floor - a few coins, a ring and a silver ornamented brooch. It had a small portrait in the center of what looked to be some form of long-haired humanoid.

Karina threatened to move, the dagger pressing against her neck to the point where it drew some blood as Bryant sifted through the items with one hand.

“And your wedding ring! We’re gonna be mighty rich men, might buy a stash of land when this piddly civil war is through,” Bryant said through a smile. “I’d let ya go.. but.. you’re a noble so if I do you’ll have me and Piers both in the gallows before we get half way to the Marches.”

“I will take her,” the pile of meat and armor that was Piers approached, his thick Orlesian accent carrying a nonchalant tone which chilled Karina to the bone. His hand rested on his belt, thumb flicking the buckle off as he smiled.

Bryant turned to face his comrade, knife still pressed against the chevalier’s neck. “Fuck you will. You got a family, right? Just ‘cause we’re deserting doesn’t mean we gotta be shit folks.”

“Do you expect me to show her leniency if we’re going to kill her anyway?” asked Piers.

“Listen,” Bryant said. He got up from nursing Karina and pointed his knife at Piers. “Giving someone a clean death so you and yours can live is a bit different than raping someone - man or woman it ain’t right no matter the reason. Unless you wanna find your own way to Fereldan?”

The giant Orlesian let out a grunt, pulling his belt back on and fastening it. He moved to stand near the edge of the road as Bryant scooped up Karina’s belongings and dropped down to a knee again, knife pressed against the back of her neck.

“Sorry I have to do this but your family will survive off of your wealth. Mine only gets shit if I come out of this war alive” Bryant said. He awkwardly moved the knife around, biting his lip as if he didn’t know what exactly was the best way to kill someone.

Karina stared at him, bored and disappointed. She looked him in the eye as he mentally put together what would be painless or efficient ways of using his dagger. The chevalier shook her head from side to side, lifting her hand with a considerable amount of effort to gesture to her throat.

“Ear to ear,” she said.

Bryant looked down, shaking his head as he became visibly wracked with guilt over the situation. He drew the knife up to her throat and grimaced as he prepared to slit the chevalier’s throat.

Piers crying out in pain as he was pelted with a ball of ice to the face distracted Bryant, the man moving away from cutting the woman’s throat to stand up and figure out what was going on. The Orlesian soldier grasped at his face, shards of sharp ice causing minor bloody wounds as he stumbled back onto his ass, another whacking him in the chest.

His training kicking in, the scout didn’t wait to figure out what was giving him trouble. Bryant took off into the brush the moment Piers hit the ground like a bat out of hell. Karina watched him, appreciating the man’s survival instinct despite his obvious issues with loyalty or being a good cog in the Empire like most Free Marchers.

The flash of a greatsword caught Karina’s eye, the swing stopping Piers’ screaming as his head barreled off his shoulders and blood shot out of his stumpy neck. The form wielding the blade pushed Piers’ corpse onto it’s back, allowing the crimson spurts to spray harmlessly onto the cobblestone road.

A qunari woman with a pair of spiraling horns and a Glaswegian smile pushed her boot down on Piers’ body, her sword drawing back to rest on her shoulder as she stared at Karina with a look of total neutrality, brown eyes boring into the chevalier as silence overtook the space between them.

Karina almost had the mind to ask why she wasn’t dead yet when a human with a walking stick bounced their way from the thick overgrowth, her jet black ponytail bobbing up and down in a way that earned the hairstyle it’s name.

“Hullo, hullo!” the woman said, her Starkhaven accent thicker than oil as she leaned forward on the curved wooden staff. “Chevalier, aye? Hi! I’m Miranda Treyich and this fine beast here is Bulwark!”

Bulwark gave a silent nod, Miranda shaking the qunari’s arm when they were mentioned. “We saw the spill and saw your colors! My aunt is from Fareau! Oh! You’re from Fareau, right? Your banner has the Duprie family crest.. you know 'authority in action, honor in blood’ Duprie?-… oh. I’ll let you talk.”

The chevalier looked at the human blankly, the mass of words flying past her so quickly that even her back pain flared up in irritation at the woman. She looked to Bulwark for some form of translation and only received the qunari shaking her head from side to side. Brilliant, she thought. Dealing with an idiot apostate.

“Fareau is my village and I am.. wounded. Take me there and you shall find stability and quarter, apostate. My identification is in my breastplate.. I am Comtesse Karina Duprie,” she said.

Miranda nodded enthusiastically, smiling from ear to ear so that her chipped teeth had enough of a showing to make Karina resentful of commoners and their poor hygiene.

“That’s what I thought!” Miranda exclaimed. “Bulwark will carry you back to our camp and then we can head for Fareau! She tamed a Bronto - it was really something else. Say what you will about the qunari but they know how to do what they were trained to do!”

Karina tried her best to nod casually along with the conversation, simply passing out from the combination of confusion, pain, and utter emotional overload. Bulwark looked to Miranda with raised eyebrows and the chattering Marcher gave her companion a quick nod.

“Cripes! You’d think she’d be more thankful we saved her from the stabby-stab,” Miranda laughed.

“Five minutes with you. She might wish we didn’t.” Bulwark said flatly.

“Aaay! That’s rude. Pick her up and let’s get back to the fire, this place is so chilly!” Miranda pulled herself off of her staff, waiting until Karina was picked up in one arm by the qunari and heading off into the hills.

“Besides! Nobles are thankful, maybe I can be an advisor and you can.. do your thing and the Orlesians will fawn over your oddity!”

Bulwark sighed.

This was going to be a long trip.


End file.
